The English Movies Thread (No Spoilers Please)

This is a discussion on The English Movies Thread (No Spoilers Please) within Shifting gears, part of the Around the Corner category; Hi all,
Last Sunday I saw a movie, " The fastest Indian ****Anthony Hopkins.
Some may have seen this, I ...

Some may have seen this, I had not. A wonderful feel good movie where an underdog Herbert Munro who manages a world speed record on a 1922 Indian bike which was achieved in 1962. He went back about nine times, each time upping the speed till he reached 206 MPH on his bike in 1000cc class. This record stands to this date, he did this with a highly modified 1922 Indian, todays Honda's and others cannot surpass this. And this is a true story. One can get details on this link:

Watched The Reader yesterday
The Reader: This revolves in the 1940ies era where a boy meets this older lady played by kate winslet and they have this affair. The boy always used to read her a novel whenever they met and she used to love listening to it. One day they have a fight and she chases him out of her place and she goes missing.
Now few years later the boy joins a law school and is taken to watch a court proceeding where a case regarding few guards from the concentration camps are sentenced for murder.

Well to put it this way its a ok movie or atleast thats what i felt. Set in the war times the locations used are really nice. Performance wise the boy has done a great role compared to the person who plays his role in the later stage.

The best part about the movie is Kate winslet who has done a brilliant job. Amazing acting by her and she betters herself in the second half. Only drawback was that the ending was weird to say the least.

Austin Powers series: Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, Austin Powers, the Spy who Shagged me, and Austin Powers, Goldmember. Re-watched these classic spoof movies after quite sometime. A fantastic way to de-stress by laughing, if you do not mind some outrageous dialogs and scenes.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People: A brilliant British comedy. Wacky situations and lines, with a charming love story running through

Street Kings: A gritty cop thriller, although one can guess the ending. Watchable.

Shoot on Sight: A nice drama on a London cop's dilemma following the London Subway bombing. Naseeruddin Shah has acted well in this movie.

Hitman: Having played the game, I liked the way Timothy Olyphant got into the character well. So so story plot, good action sequence.

Thick as Thieves : Not a bad robbery movie. There has been better ones, but worth a watch

Journey to the Center of the Earth: An ok adventure movie. Problem is after the Mummy series it is difficult to watch Brendon Fraser in a different adventure movie.

Bedazzled: An old classic comedy. Re-watch it after a long time. A must-see.

Over the past month I've watch literally an average 2 movies a day. I've been trying to remember the movies but am forgetting many of them. Some more that I remember:

Watchmen: based on a comic book. I actually found it dull. (which is surprising as I'm a sci-fi/superhero movie nut!)

The Punisher - War Zone: Now this is a action movie. Based on the comic series, I liked it because it portrays an 'hero' who does not hesitate to use extreme violence againt the bad guys. Good action sequences.

Superhero Movie: A cool spoof of the superhero movies. This movie mainly spoofs Spiderman. Has some really laugh-out-loud scenes.

Bedtime Stories: It is a nice warm movie. Not one of the top movies of Adam Sandler but watchable. His 'Zohan' movie was too much. A viewer with either enjoy it or find it too dumb.

Body of Lies: Good spy movie, but somehow I kept getting the images of Spy Game (Robert Redford and Brad Pitt) which I feel is much much better.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail : Watching this after a long time. The dialogs and scenes are really funny (Although some seem over the top, but I guess this is the effect they were trying to evoke from viewers)

The Librarian series: a TV-series based movies (Quest for the Spear, Return to King Solomon's Mines, Curse of the Judas Chalise). While not bad as a stand-alone movie series, pepel who watch the tv-series would appriciate these more.

Inkheart: A Brendon Fraser staring fantasy movie that somehow is not that convincing. Maybe the Mummy effect once again!

Animated movies -
Space Chips: a weak story, does not captivate the viewer.

Dragon Hunter: An ok movie. Better than some of the other animated movies seen recently

Wall-e: Saw this long time back, but found it to be very nice. Yes, I know it is slow, but I never found it dull or boring.

Afro Samurai: A Mature-rated (for violence and gore) animated movie. I liked the story style. It is like watching a Tarantino movie.

Futurama Movie series: Only for fans of the Futurama TV series. I watched it was I like to watch animation movies and this was a sci-fi topic! The main problem of TV series-based movies is that if you do not watch the tv series(like me), understanding the movie is a bit difficult.

Bolt: A nice family movie. Once again dog lovers would like this movie much more.

Igor: Am in two minds about this movie. On one level I find the movie watchable , but at the same time, I'm not sure if I would recommend it to others. It is an interesting twist to the standard Frankenstien story, but on the whole the movie is average.

The Tale of Despereaux: It is actually not that great. Watchable but forgettable in a few hours. The story seems too outlandish even for an animated movie.

Open Season 2: I actually did not like this. The first one was so much better.

Madagascar 2 - Escape to Africa: Like Open Season 2, the first one was much better. It has it cute moments but not enough to make me watch it twice.

I saw Insomnia (Al Pacino, Robin Williams) and Frost/Nixon in the last 24 hours. Insomnia is a detective thriller and Al Pacino is good as usual. Frost/Nixon was very interesting. The story was based on the Watergate scandal involving President Nixon. The Oscar nomination for best actor was deserved.

Yeah.. yeah.. laugh at me. Such a old movie, and its only now that i get a chance to watch it. Anyway, its better late than never, i thought.

Tom Cruise plays the role of Jerry Maguire - a sports agent, who plays agent to many of the big names in the sports business, and is quite successful at it. To him, each player is just about the money, all else being irrelevant. One particular incident calls on his conscience that he decides enough of the insensitive part and time to change, but that costs him his job. He decides to start afresh having just one client for himself, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. (best supporting actor Oscar for this movie) who is badly looking for the money.

Rene Zelleweger plays the love interest and companion in this movie, and her acting is quite natural, i must say. Gooding Jr deserved his award for a stellar performance, while Tom Cruise is his usual self.